self-deliberation.9 However, this use cannot be demonstrated elsewhere in the Old Testament.10 Instead, the text clearly depicts God as an inward plurality and outwardly singular—our image … his image (vv. 26–27), and the mention of God’s Spirit at verse 2 supports this.11 While some early Christians took this as a reference to the Trinity, the concept of one God in three persons is only implicit here at best, and is revealed with fuller clarity only in the New Testament. God’s expressed desire is
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